Blesma News
Latest news from Blesma, The Limbless Veterans
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It’s time to take on the Channel. Again!
24 August 2024
A group of determined Blesma Members is gearing up to take on the English Channel once again. These veterans are set to repeat their record-breaking cross-Channel swim in September, marking the tenth anniversary of their original achievement. Back in 2014, Conrad Thorpe, Jamie Gillespie, Craig Howorth, and Stephen White made history as the first all-amputee team to swim the 25-mile stretch from England to France. Now, nearly a decade later, they’re preparing for another attempt. In late May, they successfully completed the mandatory qualifying swim in Dover Harbour, a key milestone i
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This is home for me
21 August 2024
Scottish charity Erskine began its journey as a hospital for limbless veterans. Today, its purpose-built campus offers a care home, assisted living, and independent living options. For much of the early twentieth century, the cacophony from the shipyards along the River Clyde would drift to the quieter Kilpatrick Hills, where a different kind of revolution was underway. The shipyards were producing a significant portion of the world’s vessels and Britain’s naval fleet during WWI. Mean
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Why Wales is leading the way?
17 August 2024
Collaboration between the Welsh Government, Welsh Health, Limb Centre leads, and Blesma is yielding significant benefits in offering improved services to injured military personnel. Health services around the UK are strained, but the provision of prosthetics across Wales highlights how collaboration and cohesion can create high-quality services. In Wales, prosthetics services operate from three Limb Centres: Cardiff, Swanse
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“I’m looking at what’s going on under the surface”
11 August 2024
Caitlin McNeice is a remedial, sports and scar massage therapist with a masters in amputation rehabilitation. She explains the latest thinking behind the relatively new field of scar tissue massage There can’t be many people in the UK who know more about veterans’ rehabilitation than Caitlin McNeice. Not only is she a qualified remedial, sports and scar massage therapist with a masters degree in amputation rehabilitation, but her partner of nearly 10 years, Scott McNeice, is a military amputee and Blesma Member.
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